John Brittas urges removal of provision restricting emigration over security concerns in Overseas Mobility Bill

Brittas recalled that the Emigration Act, 1983 contained no provision permitting the executive to classify or segregate citizens for differentiated emigration procedures.

New Delhi: CPI(M) Rajya Sabha MP John Brittas on Friday wrote to External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar urging him to omit a provision in a draft Bill that put restrictions on emigration to any country on security and sovereignty concerns, claiming that it could lead to differential treatment of citizens. The draft Bill seeks to repeal the Emigration Act 1983.

Objecting to Clause 12 of the draft Overseas Mobility (Facilitation and Welfare) Bill 2025, he said it gives broad discretion to the executive to classify “certain category or categories of Indian citizens” and to impose special procedures or restrictions on their emigration to any country or group of countries on grounds of “security, sovereignty and integrity” of India, “interests of the general public,” or “protection of emigrants”.

He recalled that the Emigration Act, 1983 contained no provision permitting the executive to classify or segregate citizens for differentiated emigration procedures. It authorised only a country-specific prohibition, applicable uniformly to all emigrants, based on enumerated grounds and subject to strict temporal limits of six months, extendable only with fresh justification.

“The new draft Bill has retained this destination-based blanket prohibition power in Clause 13…while additionally introducing, through Clause 12, the citizen-based classification authority. This creates a two-tiered restriction framework – one relating to the country of destination, as in the 1983 Act; and another, significantly broader tier concerning the identity, background, or characteristics based classification of citizens with the potential for discrimination and arbitrariness,” he said.

While the intention to modernise migration governance framework was "appreciated", Brittas felt that Clause 12 raises “significant Constitutional issues and may create scope for arbitrariness” by enabling the segregation and differential treatment of citizens “without clear statutory safeguards, objective criteria, or proportionality requirements”.

Warning that such a provision could “inadvertently lead to differential treatment of particular regions, religions, communities, or socio-economic groups”, he said the protection of emigrants is a "legitimate and important objective" but the reliance on other unrelated broad grounds is likely to make the provision "vulnerable to arbitrary application".

“Such a framework could permit the Executive to differentiate between citizens on undefined bases -- including caste, religion, region or socio-economic status -- without corresponding specific statutory guardrails," he said, adding the concerns assume greater significance when seen in the light of fundamental rights.

Brittas said it may be argued that Clause 12 is intended to facilitate safeguards for vulnerable categories such as female domestic workers but such a justification may not withstand constitutional or statutory scrutiny.

“The special protection of women domestic workers - like that of any vulnerable migrant group - falls squarely within the expression of protection of emigrants, which features in several provisions of the Bill. There appears to be no rational connection between the vulnerabilities of domestic workers and the broad national-security-oriented grounds contained in Clause 12,” he said.

“Reliance on grounds such as 'security', 'sovereignty', 'integrity of India', or 'general public interest' for selective categorisation of citizens for emigration restrictions may therefore amount to an expansion of executive’s discretionary power, beyond what is required for the welfare-oriented purpose of the legislation,” he added.